Today, the generation and implantation of human embryos isn't regulated in Polish law at all. In theory, everything can be done with them, especially that Poland hasn't ratified the Council of Europe's bioethical convention that also regulates in-vitro embryos, that is, those created outside the uterus.
About forty clinics in Poland perform IVF procedures. They aren't obliged to report about them, so statistics are unavailable. Each clinic defines the terms of handling the embryos in a civil-law agreement with the prospective biological parents.
Bioethicists have long warned that this state of affairs can result in irregularities. And also in relocation to Poland of procedures illegal in other countries.
What the Health Ministry's bill proposes:
IVF procedures would be available only for sterile couples. They would therefore be unavailable for women who can have a baby the usual way but are afraid it would inherit a genetic disorder and would like to have a healthy embryo implanted.
The procedure would be available for married spouses as well as for 'couples living together'. There is no ban on embryo implantation for single women.
Surplus embryos can be created - something that several countries in Europe have banned.
Whether the surplus embryos should be stored or destroyed would be decided by the parents (gamete donors).
The destruction or improper storage of an embryo with 'development potential' that the parents wished to be stored would face a penalty of up to five years' imprisonment. In practice, this would mean the obligation of infinite storage because science is unable to determine when an embryo loses its 'development potential'.
Up to five years in prison for experimenting on embryos, as well as for 'using human reproductive cells or embryos for reproductive cloning', that is, for human cloning. The bill prohibits any form of human cloning. However, research on therapeutic cloning, that is, attempts to breed cells or organs with the purpose of treating specific patients, would not be prohibited.
Embryo adoption, that is, implanting an embryo created from the reproductive cells of other people, would be legal - but only for women unable to have babies otherwise. Surrogate maternity - a fertile woman carrying another woman's embryo and giving birth to her baby for her - would be banned.
IVF clinics and cell banks would have to meet strict criteria to obtain a Health Ministry operating certificate. They would also be subject to strict official control.
'The proposal contained in the draft are relatively bold. There are countries in Europe that have far less liberal IVF legislation than this', said Maja Grzymkowska, lawyer, author of the PhD thesis The European System of Human Rights Protection and the Development of Biomedicine.
Źródło: Gazeta Wyborcza
